Disney corporate president Karey Burke says, he supports having “many, many, many
LGBTQIA characters in our stories” and wants a minimum of 50 percent of characters to be
LGBTQIA and racial minorities.
TRANSCRIPT:
“I’m here as a mother to two queer children actually, one transgender child and one pansexual
child, and also as a leader.” Burke said in the video. “That was the thing that really got me
because I have heard so much from so many of my colleagues over the course of the last couple
weeks.” In open forums, and through emails and Phone conversations. I feel a responsibility to
speak, not just for myself but for them. We had an open forum last week at 20 th where, again,
the home of really incredible groundbreaking LGBTQIA stories over the years, where one of our
execs stood up and said, “You know, we only had a handful of queer leads in our content,” and I
went, “what? That can’t be true!” And I realized, “Oh. It actually is true.” We have many, many,
many LGBTQIA characters in our stories and yet, we don’t have enough leads and narratives in
which gay characters just get to be characters and not have to be about gay stories. That’s been
very eye-opening for me. I can tell you, it’s something that I feel, perhaps had this moment not
happened, I as a leader and as well as my colleagues would not have focused on. Going
forward, I certainly will be more so. I know that we will be, and I hope this is a moment where
shot, the 50 percent – — the tears, sorry are coming — we just won’t allow each other to go
backwards.